Kamal Ahmed, the BBC’s economics editor (soon to become editorial director of BBC news), has worked on newspapers (he was political editor of the Observer) and for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. His sparky, accessible and stimulating memoir, The Life and Times of a Very British Man, takes his life as the son of a white, Yorkshire-born mother and a Sudanese father as a starting point for a conversation about identity, racism and what it means to be British.

Your memoir reads as an undertaking to understand prejudice. Why do human beings struggle to accept otherness?
It is only by accepting we all have prejudices that we can start a conversation. The reason we find it so hard to talk about our prejudices is partly to do with Britishness: we’re bad at talking about emotions, and identity is a very emotional subject.

What are your own prejudices?
I’m in a relatively senior role at the BBC. Newsrooms, historically, have been places of machismo, and I’ve learned a macho way of behaving – I’m quite extrovert, I talk about things like “editorial heft”. Is that a good way to behave towards more introverted people, such as some young women coming into the media? Am I showing prejudice by behaving like that? It’s important to challenge oneself, put oneself in the dock.

You write about what it is to be mixed race – loving everything from a “good Victoria sponge” to James Baldwin. How confusing is it to be both?
It’s illuminating. Dual is good. I’ve a foot in both camps, rather than sitting on the fence. I understand Britishness and being an immigrant – that’s a strength.

Where does your optimism come from?
My parents both had a very get-on-with-it approach: don’t sit there wondering about the things holding you back and bemoan the world, go and seize it.

You imagine what it was like for your father as the only black man in Torquay. Did he ever talk about it?
He was not a man to talk about emotions. I’ve learned a huge amount from my mother in writing this book. I’m sad that I never spoke to my father, who has been dead 10 years, about his experiences. It’s only recently I learned my mother was the first white person my father met.

You write these words as if to your father: “I was the son who wanted something from you, but also did not want anything.” What did you want?
For children whose fathers leave when young, there’s a feeling of rejection, a concern that it is about you – guilt hangs heavy. What I didn’t get was the sense of a father who loved me and put me first. He was the reason for my being different – the last thing you’d want to be as a child. Not only had he left, he was the reason I was this funny colour… two things that felt quite big. But as I came to appreciate the amount he had achieved by coming here [as a research scientist in ophthalmology] that turned into a different type of love. He wanted me to do sciences; I studied politics, which he described as a “hobby”. But he loved me more than I imagined. He had his own way of showing it – a notion of hierarchy and of respect – quite different from a British father.

In what way did visiting Sudan refine your sense of identity?
It gave me a greater understanding that I was British. It gave me a warmer understanding of why I was different. Meeting my aunties and cousins, I understood why Sudan was important, but it did not make me Sudanese.

You’re also restrained about your parents’ breakup…
It’s their personal story. They were young – in their 20s in the early 1970s. My father came from a very different background, first-born of a well-to-do Sudanese family; he had different approaches to our notions of politeness. He never had another significant relationship after my mum.

You declare, without explanation, that you have always fallen in love with clever white women. Why?
It’s just a coincidence… A friend of mine says it is fightback against not being seen as good enough. I don’t agree, although it’s an interesting debating point…

Why did you give Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech so much space?
I’m 50 this year, and that speech – one of the most significant speeches on the issues of identity and Britain – is 50 years old. It still has resonances. Rereading it, I was shocked. I wanted to make it into a conversation with me – now. I wanted to show that these are not victimless arguments. By picking it apart, I could conclude that Enoch Powell thought Kamal Ahmed should not be allowed to live in Britain. And here I am, a very British man in Britain.

What kind of reader were you as a child?
Hugely enthusiastic – my mother was a teacher (primary, secondary, then a school inspector). She taught me to read with flash-cards in the bath… I knew when I got it wrong, because her hand would come down and smack the water.

Which books are on your bedside table?
Afua Hirsch’s Brit(ish), Rachel Cusk’s Outline, Robert Rowland Smith’s Breakfast With Socrates and Charles Moore’s latest Thatcher volume. In this frantic world, a book is like an emulsifier for your brain… it takes you into a different world, allows you to rest.

What is the last great book you read?
All That Man Is, short stories by David Szalay about the seven ages of man, in relationships. He goes from young, unrequited love, teenage love, to old age and mortality. I possibly identified with them all. I’ve been through young, unrequited love, kids and marriage, and – very sadly – divorce, but I’m not dead… yet.

What do you read for sheer pleasure?
The Great Gatsby – I’ve about four editions around my flat. My pleasure is to sit down with a nice glass of wine and read it. It’s a battle against what is disheartening, and has a final sentence of hope: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Your book is hopeful, too, that the world will change for the better…
My big argument is that change is possible. Prejudice will always be with us, but it is how we deal with it – you need understanding inside yourself.

We’re all part of the solution. I did not want to write a book about identity and prejudice that left white people feeling guilty, because that is not constructive. I wanted readers to get to the end and think: Yes.

• The Life and Times of a Very British Man by Kamal Ahmed is published by Bloomsbury (£16.99). To order a copy for £12.49 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846